A rare breed but forgotten Indian communist
Ajoy Ghosh
by Sankar Ray
If you take a random sample from amongst the card-carrying members of Communist Party of India and ask them to write four paragraphs on Ajoy Ghosh, after whom is named the national headquarters of the party, overwhelming majority will not be able to write more than four sentences. But Boris Ponomaryov, alternate member of the now-vanished Communist Party of Soviet Union for about two decades and a historian on the Communist International(Comintern) , described Ghosh as among the handful of ‘sterling leaders’ of Comintern era along with Ho Chi-Minh, Dolores Ibaruri, ‘La pasionaria’ of the Spanish Republican struggle of the 1930s, French communist stalwart Maurice Thorez, Antonio Gramsci’s comrade-in-arms Palmiro Togliatti, British scholar-communist Rajani Palme Dutt and the like. None among the stalwarts of undivided CPI is in the Ponomaryov-list. N K Krishnan, a polit bureau member of undivided CPI in the end-1940s, wrote that Ajoy Ghosh was the only CPI leader who disagreed with CPI’s stand on Quit India Movement ( he opposed the support to the colonial government while supporting the concept of ‘people’s war’ in the global concept of anti-fascist struggle) and the sectarian line of 1948 ( Ranadive thesis). You can’t blame the rank and file of CPI for being unaware of one who was a one man barricade against those who actively indulged in the process of splitting the party much before the official fissure at the Tenali Plenum on 8-11 July 1964. After the split, CPI biggies themselves seldom highlighted Ghosh who ultimately expressed his preference for the CPI’s programme of National Democracy (ND) to CPI(M)’s Peoples Democracy (PD). Was it because Ghosh’s contemptuous chagrin against factionalism and propensity to friendly inner-party ideological study to keep the party intact was not liked by rabid factionalists who were on both the sides ? However, as a ritual, Ajoy Bhavan mandarins will observe the birth centenary of Ghosh who was born on 22 February 1909 ( for Ajoy Bhavan bosses, he was born on 20 February 1909, but the late S G Sardesai, a CPI central secretariat in the 1970s, who inspired Ghosh to gravitate towards Marxism in the very early 1930s, accepted the former date). Its leaders often talk of reunification of communist parties. If they are genuine defenders of reunification, they could organize a national seminar. Excepting those who are obsessed with a cavalier-fashion historiography in judging the history of communism in India, it is generally believed that the CPI had three most outstanding general secretaries – P C Joshi, Ajoy Ghosh and E M S Namboodiripad. Dr Ranen Sen whose birth centenary is due on 23 September this year and the only one who remained a member of CPI central committee from its inception in 1933 up to the split in 1964 told this writer ( Dr Sen’s personal secretary during his twilight years) quite often. “ Comrade Ajoy was head and shoulder above all the general secretaries before or after the party split. But for his premature death on 13 January 1962, the party might not have been split.” Ghosh was imprisoned by the British rulers for having been involved in the Lahore Conspiracy Case as a junior comrade of Bhagat Singh who influenced him profoundly. He too opposed both Hindu and Muslim communalism although agreeing that the Hindu variant was a much bigger threat to the democratic polity. In his last- published article in the CPI weekly New Age - ‘For the Unity of our Motherland’ – he warned against Hindu communalism that permeated into India’s ‘ social and political life’ and ‘is even more dangerous’ . But he castigated other communal variants too. “When I say communal parties, I have in mind all communal parties, whether Hindu, Muslim or Sikh”. He added, “Any opportunistic association or alliance would be a positive disservice to the cause of national integration”. How Ghosh took on the split-syndrome in zealously factional leaders at the Sixth CPI Congress ( Vijaywada, April 1961) is a lesson for those who look forward to reunification of communist parties in India. Both the draft party programmes – ND and PD – were circulated. Along side the draft political resolution, placed by Ghosh with support from EMS who was virtually next to him in the central secretariat, the alternate draft , jointly placed by P Sundarayya, M Basavapunnaiah, Jyoti Basu, H K Surjeet, Promode Dasgupta, Bhupesh Gupta and others among 21 national council members were circulated. Ghosh, EMS and most of the delegates agreed that instead of adoption of a single programme and a PS ( the last jamboree of undivided CPI), there be a debate after the Congress. But split syndrome remained manifest. The Left-leaning group – PD- liners resorted to pressure tactics a day before the penultimate day. One by one, they withdrew their names from the proposed panel for the new NC. Actually, they wanted more Left-adherents in the NC. Ghosh smelt a provocation for a split and proposed to increase the number of NC members to accommodate them, in consultation with Mikhail Suslov, head of the delegation from the CP of Soviet Union proposed that the size of the NC be enlarged to accommodate more. He emulated Lenin who in his Letter to the Congress – known also as his Testament Lenin suggested that the size of central committee be enlarged from 50 to 100 to save the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from being split by Stalin and Trotsky factions. Defying his serious illness ,Ghosh delivered his historic speech New Situation and Our Tasks – the only document adopted at the Congress. Unfortunately, it is said that Ghosh saved the party through a patch-up.
source-Australia.to-World News
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